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For Everyone -
2 h.
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Serbian
Backyard Brains OpenLab Series 4/5: Faster Than Lightning? How Fast Is Our Nervous System?
Do you react faster to sound or light? What happens when you need to ignore some signals and respond to others?
In this workshop, you will test the speed of your nervous system and explore how different stimuli affect your reaction time. Through a series of short, high-intensity experiments, you will examine how the brain registers light, sound, and their combinations, and how efficiently your nervous system responds to these signals. The Reaction Timer system lets you see your neurophysiology in numbers, and perhaps even surprise yourself.
About This Workshop
We continue the Backyard Brains OpenLab cycle (December 10, 15, 17, 18, and 22) by testing the speed of the electrical impulses traveling through your body!
Science Through Practice
We’ll transform the workspace into a reflex-testing arena. Using specialized timers and response buttons, you will conduct a series of measurements on yourself and others. You will analyze the milliseconds that make the difference between success and failure, test how distraction (such as conversation or music) drastically slows your reactions, and attempt to “trick” your own nervous system to achieve a better score.
What You Will Learn
- How long it takes you to make a decision
- How reflex arcs and sensory processing operate in real time
- How the Backyard Brains Reaction Timer works
- How the brain receives visual and auditory signals and converts them into muscle commands
- How different types of stimuli influence your response speed
- How to measure, compare, and analyze your reaction time
Why Join?
You will see just how fast your brain truly is—and where various sensory systems slow it down or speed it up. This experiment blends physiology, psychology, and performance testing into a fun and challenging experience, with direct relevance to everyday behavior (for example, while driving). If you want to see your reactions as data and understand how a decision becomes a movement, this workshop is the perfect opportunity.
About the Instructor
The workshop is led by Aleksa Vasić, M.Sc. in Biology. As a science communicator, Aleksa combines biology, neuroscience, and technology to bring modern scientific discoveries closer to the public. Through practical demonstrations, he shows how the electrical signals that control our bodies can be observed, measured, and interpreted using simple tools.